Our Olympic event was a football match at Old Trafford. We arrived at Manchester the night before finding the Travelodge with comparative ease followed by a trip to Pizza hut for tea. There was an Aldi on the same site as the Pizza Hut so we stocked up on drinks and sausage rolls for the match. After studying the leaflet that came with the tickets we discovered that we couldn’t bring liquids into the venue and bags would be searched and then sealed into clear plastic bags.
After sitting in the bar for the free Wi fi we concluded the best way to get there was to park at the Trafford centre and catch the park and ride bus in. Once again we travelled around and back tracked before we found the right place and got on the bus. It was around 9:30am when we got to the stadium and the match was at 12 noon so we hung around, bought a match programme, an Egypt/New Zealand scarf and an Egyptian flag before we went in at 10:20. Buying drinks as we passed through to our seats was a shock £2.30 for coke and £1.60 for water – they take the lids off for you so they can’t be used as weapons.
We watched the warm-up and then the first match, (Brazil v Belarus was the second match with 66,000 in attendance). Behind us sat a group of young boys determined to start a Mexican wave, eventually they succeeded and it went round 3 or 4 times. The football was ok and we had ideal seats behind one of the goals.
We didn’t stop for the Brazil match choosing instead to make our way back to the Trafford Centre, which is huge, for a ‘quick’ walk round and then the drive back to Hatfield for a couple of quiet days before the next big thing.
Wow, interesting game to watch - where did your loyalties lie?? :)
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